


And finally it seems my lonely days are through

by glitter_bitch



Series: The Stars Unaligned [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Breakfast Shenanigans, Canonical Character Death, Communication, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Finally, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gerry is a morning person, Happy Ending, Hospitals, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, M/M, Memories, Mentions of Cancer, Michael is decidedly not, Past Abuse, Red String of Fate, Reuniting, Slow Dancing, Sort of at least, Spoilers for Season 5, Stargazing, The End, The Eye, The Spiral, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, but the camera tastefully pans away at an opportune moment, spoilers for 160, trauma processing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24266887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitter_bitch/pseuds/glitter_bitch
Summary: The End has finally claimed Gerry and Michael.They're honestly quite relieved about the whole thing.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Series: The Stars Unaligned [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1716685
Comments: 58
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

Time works differently in The End. Not the same kind of different as the Spiral, mind you, but different nonetheless. In the Spiral, time had been a jagged, grating thing that danced about back to front in loop-de-loops as easily as you could snap your fingers. Here, everything was slow. Plodding. Terminal. Every moment was separated and tinged with an awful finality. Here one knew that each passing second was never to be gotten back, that one was always running out of time. The determined, slouching pace was nigh unbearable if dwelt upon too long.

Which is why Michael finds himself wandering far sooner than he is proud of.

He can deal with the chill, though it is bone-achingly deep and sinks through his clothes with hardly any fight. He can deal with the indecisive northern sun as it dances from horizon to horizon, never quite finding the gumption to put down roots and set. He can even deal with the little ticks of his mind, placing sunshine-yellow doors in the sides of snowbanks at the corners of his vision that disappear when he turns to see them more clearly. The time though, is a different story. That dreadful feeling worms its way into him and he finds himself tense as it all counts down to… what? Something. Everything at once and nothing at all because it doesn’t matter what the result is, just that it is all over.

He feels it all end, and then it all ends again, and again, and again, and all at once it becomes too much because an eternity like this is worse than ceasing to exist.

So he begins to walk, to distract himself. Slowly, of course. There’s no hurry when one has all the time in the world. His brain begs him to stay, makes wild, nonsensical arguments that no one will be able to find him if he leaves, but he brushes those thoughts aside easily enough. He knows the truth. No one is coming for him. He is done lying to himself.

Gradually the world around him gets warmer. As the heat increases, his peacoat disappears, and his winter boots are replaced with his slick, brown leather work shoes, though he can’t actually remember changing at any point. They simply came as they were needed. The difference is immaterial; the changes on the outside don’t worry him. He’s more concerned with the ones on the inside.

Michael thinks about Gerry and little else as he walks through his own personal Asphodel. (He has taken to calling it that. It seems appropriate enough.) There are many memories of many things and many places that press on his mind, but the loss he feels when he thinks about Gerry is the rawest, and he can’t seem to stop himself. Sweetness is a deadly and inescapable trap. One catches more flies with honey than vinegar, after all.

The minutes tick on, endless, ever-ending. Sometimes he can’t remember Gerry’s face. The broad strokes are there, but the details are smudged. Was that scar over his left or right eye? Did he have one or two dimples when he smiled? On which side of his jaw was the freckle he was so embarrassed about? It is the times like these when Michael doubts himself most. He is through with deceit, especially that of his own making. It hurts to find comfort in the lie of knowing, but it hurts worse to admit he is forgetting.

Walking through his world now is eerily similar to walking through his old world. The buildings are the same, if a little too uniform and pristine, the parks are ordered familiarly, even if they’re not quite recognizable, and the road winds the way it’s supposed to, which he knows even if he’s never traveled down it before. Everything is spotless, manicured, and free of litter.

Which is why the piece of string catches his attention.

There is nothing extraordinary about it, not really. Just a long bit of muted green yarn lying flat against the painted lines on the tarmac. He glances down the length of it, but can’t manage to see its end. Curious, he picks it up and something warm and electric runs down his spine and through to his fingertips. 

He’s supposed to follow it. He doesn’t know where it will lead, but he knows that it will take him to where he needs to be. 

He pinches it between two fingers and on a whim, wets the end in his mouth, bringing all the frayed ends together. A loose fiber gets caught in his teeth, but he pays it no mind as he carefully wraps the end twice around his left ring finger and ties it off with a tight knot. After all, it wouldn’t do to lose something so important.

\---

Gerry comes to in the middle of an abandoned parking lot, clutching a piece of yarn so tight his nails are leaving crescents in the soft bits of his palm. This is not the strangest place he’s woken up in, but it does stand out as a notable development, given the last thing he remembers is the whitewashed walls of a sparse hospital room.

He stands, brushes himself off. His clothes are right, at least. A pair of dark jeans, and the leather jacket he wears while travelling because his favorite one is so covered in zippers and spikes and chains that it never fails to set off the airport metal detectors. Knowing that is all well and good, but it doesn’t really answer the question of where he is. He walks to the sidewalk to get a better view of a street sign, and notes the city: Pittsburg. He remembers Pittsburg. But why was he here? It was some kind of business. Unusual business because he’d been traveling with someone else. A woman, he thinks, an old woman, but beyond that the memory is messy.

He tries to hone in on any other details, but is interrupted by someone stepping out of a dingy corner convenience store. His hackles rise instinctively. They’re cloaked- never a good sign in his line of work- and their face is hidden deep within the recesses of their hood. They approach him, slowly and directly. Gerry considers running, but the thought passes as soon as it enters. There’s an inevitability about this person, and somehow he knows that there is no running away from them. So instead, he balls his fists and tenses his shoulders, preparing for a fight in the small ways that he can.

The figure glides to a stop just in front of him, and surveys him carefully. Up close, Gerry can see that the hood hides nothing more than a blank void.

“Mister Gerard Keay?” the figure asks. Gerry nods on impulse, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. He’s not the type to give out information to strangers.

The figure pauses for a moment before continuing. “If you have any questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. I wouldn’t advise taking too long to do so, though.”

“Why not?” Gerry asks cautiously.

The figure points to the strand closed tight in his fist. “You have someone waiting for you.”

Gerry glances down, and is hit with a flood of memories. His hands carding through thick blond curls. A golden laugh. Standing on his tiptoes to reach impossibly soft lips. A weight settles in his chest. “Michael,” he breathes, and the figure nods once.

Gerry furrows his brow and tries to remember. “But wait, if I’m… If he’s… oh Christ. I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“You’ve reached The End,” the figure says, “If you have nothing more to ask, I’ll be on my way.”

“You said he was looking for me,” Gerry says, almost frantic. “How do I… how do I find him?”

The figure points once again at his fist, “I thought that much would be obvious.”

Gerry looks back at the strand of yarn in his hand and traces it’s length down to the pavement, across the road and into the distance.

“Is he okay?” he asks, but when he looks back up, the figure is gone and he is once again alone.

He swallows dryly, tring to ignore the lump in his throat, and begins walking, wrapping the string around his hand as he goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we've reached the beginning of the end.
> 
> Title taken from "I've Been Waiting For You" by ABBA


	2. Chapter 2

Gerry has been following the string for a short eternity. Every step he takes feels like the final peal of a leaden church bell in the distance, and he has to fight the feelings of finality that well up inside of him and encourage him to just lie down and accept his fate, whatever that would mean here. Memories are the easiest ways to do this, and the yarn seems to be cooperating with him on that front, taking him through hauntingly familiar spots as well as ones so blurry with age he can barely remember.

As he wanders, he winds the yarn carefully into a ball, the way Miss Beckett had taught him. He’d remembered her and the rest of the women who’d attended the weekly Stitch n’ Bitch the first time he’d been forced to wander through Pinhole. His mother had grudgingly let them stay (god knows they needed the business, what with how much they traveled) and even more grudgingly let Gerry go downstairs to assist with untangling yarn or threading needles. It was always a relief to have them in the store. Mary was less prone to snap at him when company was over. She wouldn’t let him call it by name- he wasn’t allowed to be foul-mouthed- but referring to it as the “Tuesday Night Ladies Knitting Circle” was a small price to pay for a weekly dose of safety and fawning. Gerry recalls the slipped hard candies and doting “well aren’t you a handsome young man!”s as one of the few happy memories the yarn decided to take him through.

As the count stands, this place seems far more concerned with making him remember the bad. Or perhaps it’s the same balance as in life, and he’s just done a fantastic job at repressing it all.

The ball never gets bigger than he can comfortably hold in his hand, though he’s been walking for a long while. It leads him through city streets and packed-dirt country paths, through cozy bed and breakfasts where he’d spent nights while Mary was out haggling for Leitners, and through countless identical shitty hotel rooms where he used to stay while hunting them down to burn. Screaming matches with his mother play out in his early mornings, and physical altercations with agitated and monstrous book owners roll in with the setting of the sun. 

He sees Mary, half-skinned and bloody, and reaching out to him with pride in her eyes, only to have her dissolve into a stern-faced apparition glaring down at him with barely-concealed abhorrence. He tries to ignore this, but the thread will not take no for an answer, and forces him through it again and again until it is burned into his brain as clear as day, until he can remember it in all of its sickening detail, just like everything else.

Every now and then a brighter memory surfaces, more often than not his angel, but they never last long enough, and soon he finds himself back in the sterilized, too-clean corner booths of once-grimy diners or no-longer-trash-strewn public parks or dust-free employees-only backrooms of small public libraries where he’d been scarred and burned and bruised by whatever book he’d been hunting down at the time.

As he walks, things become more clear. The initial fuzziness he’d felt on arrival had worn off quickly, and he blames its existence on his roundabout path into the afterlife. He finds himself able to recall everything with more and more clarity as he wanders. He follows the thread, moving from city to city, country to country, though he never actually feels the distance traveled, nor finds himself at any oceans to be crossed.

There is a particularly long stint across America, along the east coast and out into the Appalachians that he finds particularly nauseating to relive. He guesses that it’s the path those so-called ‘monster hunters’ had taken him on while he was bound to the skin book. His travels here are filled with blank space followed by short floods of memories from when he was actually let out. He is quietly grateful that whatever is leading him through all this doesn’t force him to experience everything that was going on in his absence as well, and tries to walk a little faster.

Eventually he ends up back in London. He is exhausted as the thread leads him in circles around the Institute and his old haunts, never seeming to cross itself or run out. He feels as though he’s walked through these doors a thousand times, but the yarn is insistent, and so he pushes through them again and again. He’s so intently focused on his winding, on trying to take the memories in quickly and then push them to the back of his mind so that his hope can’t be quashed again (they are so much more magnificently painful here), that he almost doesn’t notice the slight tug on the other end.

He stops. The tug comes again lifting the string ever so slightly, before settling it back down flush to the ground. Gerry follows the length down the sidewalk up and around the corner of an old familiar apartment complex. Once more it lifts off the ground, scraping against the rough brickwork and then, miracle of miracles, someone steps around the corner, holding the other end loosely in long, soft fingers.

Gerry drinks him in in an instant, hardly thinking as a name spills from his lips.

“Michael!”

\---

Michael could not tell you how long he’s been following the string. As he runs it through his hands one arm’s length at a time, he doesn’t feel it rubbing the skin raw. Whatever is on the other end is too important to waste energy worrying about that.

The path is maddeningly repetitive. Loops and swirls around his childhood home for a while, then a stint through the various houses he’d been placed in by the foster system, and just when he thinks he is getting somewhere he is pulled back to the beginning.

New memories arise each time. Autumns spent in the backyard, listening to the buzz of insects as he pulled up handfuls of grass under an overcast sky. Winters huddled up in his room, reading under the covers as the sound of furniture scraping across carpet and linoleum echo up the stairwell and down the hall. The one summer he’d been forced by his foster family to play in a community rugby league despite his protests.

There was the park where he’d had his first kiss, given to a girl named Eva during a game of spin the bottle. He’d turned away and grimaced afterwards, but she had too. They had been young. There is no sense in feeling sorry about it now.

And still the thread pulls him back and forth and he sees himself smoke his first cigarette, and the ditch where he’d broken his arm after falling off of his bike, and the copy of _The Heart is a Lonely Hunter_ he had annotated and marked beyond readability.

He saw his mother’s death a hundred thousand times with hellish clarity.

As he walks, the thread changes colors. Not all at once, but in a gradual fade. One moment it will be a dusky blue and the next time he remembers to look down it’s turned a faded mustard. He has the sneaking suspicion that if he had taken the time to hunt down a pair of needles the pattern it would make would be both familiar and sore.

At long last, the grip of childhood memories loosens. He finds himself led through the clubs he’d frequented during his college days, and old dorm rooms, and even the occasional party where he’d ended up piss-drunk with a stranger holding his hair back as he retched over a toilet. All still memory-stained, but far more tolerably, at least.

What hurts the most is not knowing if he’ll ever make it to the person on the other end. He knows it won’t be his mother. Whatever had taken her is too similar to what had taken him, and it is not so capricious to allow her the help he’d been granted, even if his assistance had been an accident. True connections had been few and far between in his life, much less positive ones, and he can’t bear the thought of any continued bitterness waiting on the other end, which narrows down the list quite efficiently. But can he really bear to see Gerry again after all he’s put him through? Will he even be able to reach him?

So the knot in his stomach grows tighter and more tangled as he finds himself weaving in and out of the Institute and the surrounding London streets. The thread in his hand stays as neat as Ariadne’s.

Soon he finds himself on that street that is more familiar than all the others, and so raw and painful that it might as well be bleeding. Still he marches on, hoping, praying, knowing that the end must be in sight. He’s so focused on these repetitions, on following the string to it’s end that he doesn’t notice he’s no longer alone until he hears his name.

“Michael!”

And when he looks up the knot in his stomach is pulled even tighter because it’s Gerry, standing there in the middle of the street. His Gerry, gazing back at him with the biggest grin he’s ever seen.

The sound or feeling of his feet hitting the ground barely registers as he hurls himself through the abandoned city towards him, and Gerry is rushing right back, and Michael has never felt so terrified and relieved all at the same time.

He flinches, trying to stop himself before they collide, thinking back to long months of sharpness and accidentally inflicted pain, but the same thought apparently isn’t in Gerry’s mind, and he is hit with a hug so forceful he is knocked to the ground, but it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts, nothing _can_ hurt because everything is so light, and the mouth against his is so nice and soft and loving that it’s almost enough to convince Michael that he isn’t actually in hell.

“It’s you,” he says dumbfounded as Gerry breaks for air, and he’s smiling, but the ache in his cheeks is human.

“Yeah,” Gerry says, still on top of him, “It’s me.”

They’re both crying now, and it mixes in with the kisses, but good god, tears never tasted so sweet.


	3. Chapter 3

The dread still comes, but they hardly notice it anymore. There’s too much comfort in each other. And yes, the minutes still tick down to countless ends, but what power does an end have against those who can’t be bothered to notice it?

They’ve moved back into their old apartment, though it looks fresher now than it did when they’d had it in life. They’ve slipped into a routine quickly. Anything to mimic normality in this abandoned world they’re trying to fill together.

Michael is curled up on the couch, Gerry’s head in his lap. He looks so peaceful like this, and Michael is relieved in no small way that he finally feels safe enough to doze. He plays with a strand of his hair, wrapping it around his finger, perfectly content.

“You know,” Gerry says, not bothering to open his eyes, “I never thought I’d say this, but I actually  _ missed _ your dad music.”

Michael blushes. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “It’s not dad music, Gerry.”

“Fine. New age dork pop. Whatever you called it,” Gerry says around a yawn.

“...geek rock.”

Gerry laughs. “I’m sorry, but that’s so much worse than dad music, angel. You get that that’s worse, right?”

“I could stand up right now and dump you on the floor,” Michael threatens.

Gerry turns his head and kisses his stomach. “But you won’t.” Michael narrows his eyes, and Gerry giggles again. “You’re cute when you’re indignant.”

“At least I can understand what they’re saying,” Michael manages finally. It’s a poor defense, he knows this, but it’s all he can think of when Gerry’s laugh has sent butterflies coursing through him.

“Fair enough,” Gerry concedes. “Don’t stop on my account though. You have a lovely voice.”

“Flatterer,” Michael says, suppressing a smile. “Don’t think you’re getting out of this one that easily.”

“Suit yourself. You don’t  _ have _ to keep humming. But I have to say, we’ll look pretty silly dancing if there’s no music.”

“Dancing, hmm?”

“Yeah,” Gerry says, and sits up. He stretches, stands, and extends a hand. “Michael Shelley, light of my life, er… death. May I have this dance?”

“What, here?”

“Yes! Unless you’d like to go somewhere else. The world is our oyster, after all.”

“No no, this is fine. Great, actually.” He takes Gerry’s hand and allows himself to be pulled to his feet. Gerry leads him out and around the coffee table to the center of the floor which seems bigger than it did a minute ago. It actually might be. For all the fear, this place had proved itself to be remarkably accommodating. Not that Michael has much time to dwell on that because Gerry reaches up and drapes his arms around his shoulders, and leans close into him. He starts swaying back and forth in the silence, moving Michael with him.

“I might be wrong here,” he says, “I never went to a school dance, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to put your arms around my waist.”

It’s Michael’s turn to laugh, and he pulls him closer by the hips before wrapping his arms around him. “Well you didn’t miss much. And you’re mostly right, except I only hold onto your waist when the chaperones are looking.”

Gerry looks pointedly around the room. “Well I don’t think anyone’s watching if you wanna cop a feel.” He winks.

Michael can’t help himself. He leans down and kisses him, and it’s clumsy and awkward and their teeth clack together, and it's just like every teenage kiss he’d ever given, but this one is different because of who he’s giving it to.

“Fuck, I missed you so much,” Gerry whispers, burying his face into Michael’s chest.

“I missed me too,” Michael admits, “And you. Us. All of this. But all of that is over now.” He gently strokes Gerry’s hair as they rock back and forth. “I’m never leaving you again.”


	4. Chapter 4

The conversation has been slow between them. Not all conversation- they practically haven’t stopped talking since they found each other again- but the important one has been slow. There’s so much to say about those years of separation. Those times when Michael was a monster and Gerry was a ghost and the whole world was topsy-turvy wrongways. But they have all the time in the world to work out their hurt now, so they let it reveal itself slowly, naturally, tucked into epithets of conversations late at night (or during what passed for night here) where the dark can hide tears and provide comfort. It is a process, not an event. They both know this.

Michael sits cross-legged on the floor, idly playing solitaire while Gerry sketches on the bed. He’s gotten back into art recently, and he’s good at it too. Not painting, not yet. There’s too many associations he’d rather not deal with right now, but there are other ways to create. Michael is his favorite thing to draw.

Michael puts down a spade in one of the piles and flips the deck over. He glances up at Gerry. His tongue sticks out slightly as he bites it in concentration. It’s adorable. Michael fights the urge to tell him. He’d try to stop doing it if he knew.

Michael leafs through the deck once more, but finds himself stuck. With a sigh he gathers up the cards, reshuffles them and lays them back out, starting over. 

“I’m bound to win eventually, right?” he says to no one in particular. Gerry’s too focused to answer. At least this game seems to be going in his favor. He has three aces up already, and he’s only been through the deck once.

The scritching of Gerry’s pencil against paper stops. “Hey, Michael?”

“Mmm?” Michael hums as he rearranges a stack of cards.

“I…” Gerry falters, inhales deep, and starts again. “I need to tell you something. Something important.”

“Yes, my love? What is it?” He looks up, and Gerry can’t meet his eyes. His expression is dark, and he’s clutching the pencil tightly, and tapping it almost violently against his thigh. He doesn’t continue.

“Is this something you’d like me to be up there with you for?” Michael asks softly.

Gerry bites the inside of his cheek and nods. “Yeah. If you wouldn’t mind.”

Michael leaves his game on the floor, and climbs up onto the bed, setting Gerry’s sketchpad off to the side. He pulls Gerry into his lap and hugs him close, letting him rest his head on his shoulder. “There we are, dearest. Let it all out.”

Gerry is still tense. He takes a couple of breaths before starting again. “When I was in the hospital that last time… the, uh, the first time I died, I mean.”

Michael nods, encouraging him to go on.

“Well I knew the end was coming soon when I was there. I  _ knew _ that I wasn’t going to make it out and it was just a matter of time and…”

He trails off again, and Michael rubs his back, slowly and lovingly.

“When it finally came, I-” he chokes up, squeezes Michael tightly to him. Then the dam breaks, and the words are spilling out of his mouth and into the air with force. “You weren’t my last thought, angel, it was my mother. I’m so sorry. I was dying and all I could think about was my mother and I hate myself so much for it. How I couldn’t even do  _ that  _ much for you, Michael, couldn’t even- God, I’m so, so sorry. I-”

“Gerry!” Michael cuts him off. “Is this what you’ve been so worried about recently? Gerry I’m  _ glad _ I wasn’t your last thought. You weren’t mine either.”

Gerry pulls his head back to look Michael in the face. His brows are furrowed and he looks confused. “I wasn’t?”

“No!” Michael exclaims, “And I wouldn’t have wanted you to be! Dying wasn’t a good experience for either of us. It hurt. A lot. And thinking about associating that kind of pain with you, even accidentally? I don’t want to even consider it! Of course you were thinking about your mother, Gerry. You were  _ suffering _ .”

There is a long pause. “I hadn’t thought about it like that,” Gerry says, and Michael feels him relax a fraction. “Makes sense though.”

Michael hugs him a little tighter, and runs his fingers through Gerry’s hair to help him calm down. They stay like that for a long while. 

“I’m so glad that I get to spend forever with you,” Michael eventually says, “Because it means that I’ll get to see the day you stop apologizing for things that aren’t your fault.”

“Might be a long time coming,” Gerry says, only half-joking, and Michael laughs softly.

“I don’t mind the wait.”


	5. Chapter 5

Very little has changed about their world other than it is empty. Traveling is a bit easier. There’s never any crowds and if they think hard enough, they somehow wind up just where they wanted to go despite never actually taking the ‘right’ path. Not that either of them are complaining. It’s cozy.

Right now they find themselves lying on an old comforter on a mountainside in Wales, gazing up at a silver-dotted sky.

“Do you think the stars are different here?” Michael asks, squeezing Gerry’s hand.

“Nah,” Gerry says, “They all seem to be in place.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, see? That one there’s Venus, and over there’s Ursa Major, and if you look just a little bit to your left there you can see Orion. The season’s a bit off, I think, but they’re all here and mostly right.”

Michael snuggles closer. “Dark, mysterious,  _ and _ brilliant. I really hit the jackpot with you.”

Gerry laughs. “I had a bit of an astronomy phase as a kid.”

“Cute.”

“Got over it pretty quick though, after my mother brought home a copy of that one H. A. Rey space book that was supposed to suck the reader into a vacuum.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah, she was weirdly excited about that one.”

They settle back into silence, studying the sky. Then, “Tell me more about the stars.”

And Gerry does. He points to the milky way, traces it bright against the blackness, even more so now that there’s no light pollution to dim it. He tells Michael the difference between dwarfs and giants, and their billions of years long life cycles. How if you look close enough, the stars are all different colors, reds and greens and blues and oranges, not just white. He talks about the big dipper, how it was used for navigation, and how out of the countless stories about it, his favorite is the one about a family of seven brothers and their adopted sister who run away to become stars to avoid being separated. Michael listens, enraptured.

“A lot of people think that Andromeda’s the closest galaxy to us, but it’s not. We’re actually closer to one called the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, and the way our solar system is positioned in the Milky Way, we’re-”

He’s cut off by Michael rolling on top of him and pulling him into a kiss.

“Michael!” Gerry can feel his face getting warm.

“Couldn’t help it. You’re so fucking hot right now,” Michael grins and leans in close again. Their noses bump together in the dark, but Michael readjusts quickly, and Gerry melts into the palms cupping the side of his face, and the thumbs stroking his cheekbones. Everything else he’d been thinking about fades from his mind and is replaced with the feeling of Michael’s lips on his. He starts to lift himself, to try and get a better angle, but Michael pins him down.

“Oh no you don’t! You’re going to stay right where you are and let me love you.”

So Gerry relaxes, and lets Michael kiss his nose and cheeks and every single scar he can find, and it feels so good to be loved, to be adored. Michael kisses him breathless, and it's only when he’s moved down to his neck, nursing a sensitive spot into a hickey that Gerry finds the wherewithal to ask:

“Should we take this back to our place?”

“We could,” Michael says, breaking ever-so-briefly, “If you want. But we  _ are _ alone, and the stars are so beautiful tonight.”

And Gerry has to admit that the night air is unseasonably balmy, and the weight of Michael against him is too good to lose right now, even for a second.

“Alright,” he says finally, and Michael smiles into him.

The sun doesn’t rise until they’re ready for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ The Quill-Work Girl and Her Seven Brothers- A Cheyenne Folktale](http://snowwowl.com/legends/cheyenne/cheyenne6.html)


	6. Chapter 6

Time works differently in The End, and it’s wonderful. Gerry and Michael can’t tell if they’ve been here for six months or a hundred years, and they don’t care either. Every minute spent together is its own small miracle.

Gerry is an early riser- usually with the sun, whenever it decides to come up- and today is no different. He rolls over, and there’s Michael, sprawled akimbo with his hair fallen halfway out of the messy bun he’d put it in last night before bed. He stirs as Gerry leans over to kiss him awake.

“Good morning, angel.”

Michael wrinkles his nose, and mumbles, “Morning breath.”

Gerry smiles, “Love you too.”

Michael groans and rolls over, mashing his face into the pillow with a muffled “Five more minutes.”

Gerry rolls his eyes and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Michael will be up soon enough, once he smells breakfast.

Sure enough, just as the butter starts to melt and pop in the pan, footsteps pad up behind him. Michael rests his head on top of Gerry’s and drapes his arms around him.

“You don’t have to wake up so early all the time,” he mumbles, voice low and rumbly with sleep, “And it definitely wouldn’t kill you to cuddle with me either. Like, it _can’t_. We’re literally already dead.”

“Ah, but you’ve fallen right into my trap,” Gerry says, “I’m awake as early as I want to be, and you’ve brought the cuddles to me. I can’t lose.”

Michael mumbles something indistinguishable into his hair before yawning. “What are you making?”

“French toast.”

“Did you put the cinnamon stuff in it this time?”

“Of _course_ I put cinnamon in it, Michael. I’m not an animal.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to need my arms back now.”

“No.”

“Unless you like yours burned, of course.”

“Oh, fine. But you should know that I’m going to take this personally and you’re going to have to make it up to me later.”

“I always do,” Gerry says as Michael shuffles off to make the bed.

They don’t technically need to eat anymore. Neither of them can remember being hungry since they’ve arrived, but food is still a source of comfort, so they see no need to stop.

“You have powdered sugar on your face,” Michael says, in a much better mood now that he has something hot and sweet on his plate, and a different something hot and sweet sitting next to him.

“Where?”

“Right… there,” Michael says, leaning down to kiss his jaw. He smiles. “Oh no, looks like I missed it” He kisses Gerry again. “There.”

After all of this time, Gerry still blushes under his touch, and Michael loves it. He takes another bite and chews slowly. “You know what?” he says, “I think you’ve actually become a _messier_ eater since I’ve known you.”

Gerry grins, cheeks still dusted with pink. “You can’t prove anything.”

\---

Soon they’re back in the kitchen, Gerry elbow-deep in dishwater. Michael leans up against the counter next to him, and sips his tea. “Contrary to what you might think, I actually _can_ wash the dishes every now and then. I’m a grown-up. I know how to do it.”

“No you don’t,” Gerry says immediately, “You do it wrong.”

“They get clean!”

“Yes they do. And so does the countertop. And the floor. It’s a wonder there’s any water left in the sink when you’re done, the way you wash dishes. I’d like to keep my socks _dry_ , thank you very much.”

Michael sighs and finishes off his tea. “You have no sense of adventure.”

Gerry sprays him with the nozzle.

“Hey! No fair!” Michael yelps and reaches to snatch it out of his grasp when he feels his stomach drop.

They both freeze.

“Did you feel that?” Gerry asks.

Michael nods. He swallows down the fright that’s leapt into this throat all of a sudden and tries to ignore the sudden inexplicable terror that’s setting his teeth on edge.

Gerry’s breath catches. He’s trying so hard to ignore this, to make it go away, but it’s insistent and it squirms its way inside, past his defenses. The feeling is thick in the air, almost palpable, and much stronger than the gentle underlying fear they’ve grown accustomed to here.

He meets Michael’s eyes and understanding flashes between them. They rush to the window, leaving the tap running. Neither is prepared for the sight that greets them.

The world is no longer empty. The London streets wind strangely and violently, almost invisible through the thick red haze of smoke and fog that’s settled over the city. A cacophony of horror echoes up into their apartment: gunfire, pipes, sobbing. In the distance a tower spires upwards into the air, stabbing high above anything else in this new hellscape.

“Is that…?” Gerry asks, and Michael nods. 

“The Institute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry


	7. Chapter 7

The facts are these:

1) They are no longer dead. They aren’t alive either. Nor are they ghosts or monsters or books or hallways or anything they’ve been before. They are just _here._

2) They are no longer alone. It is unclear whether The End has expelled them or if the rest of the world has simply chosen to join them, bringing this dystopia along, but the semantics hardly matter when the outside is littered with bodies and survivors and everything between or beyond.

3) They are being watched. After the initial panic and dread become familiar enough to be separated out, the underlying current of paranoia becomes glaringly obvious. It’s not unlike the pervasive feeling of being spied on they had both felt at the Institute, except this is much stronger. It’s… broader, somehow. More dispersed. It isn’t laser-focused anymore. Which means they have options.

At first the fear had been overwhelming. Either would be hard pressed to tell you exactly how long they had spent, holed up inside and curled tight against each other under the blankets like frightened children.There were too many possibilities now, too many horrible possibilities.

At some point though, fear had been replaced with anger. Michael found himself truly seething for the first time in an age, wondering who thought they had the right to rip away Gerry’s first real moments of safety and happiness. Gerry boiled inside thinking about what he’d love to do if he ever got his hands on whoever had forced Michael back into the hellscape of the fears when he hadn’t even managed to escape the first time.

Eventually, they met each other’s eyes, and they knew exactly what they needed to do.

“Well, the problem’s obviously the Institute,” Gerry says. “Always has been.”

Michael nods, “It’s powerful now, but it can’t be immune to _everything_ , surely.”

“We’ve just got to get there, and then… are you okay with this?”

“What? Hunting down our old boss and possibly killing him?” Michael says. “I… I think so. I mean he _is_ evil, Gerry. He’s kind of the reason we died in the first place. Well, him and Gertrude, but I don’t think she’s a part of this.”

Gerry agrees. “No, you’re right. She would’ve hated this.”

“I’m not opposed to a little revenge,” Michael says cautiously, “Within reason, of course. And if it comes with the added bonus of stopping whatever the hell is going on…”

“It _has_ been a little while since the last time we saved the world,” Gerry says, “Wouldn’t hurt to brush up on it.”

They trail off, and the decision is made. “Yeah,” Michael says, “Yeah let’s do it.”

\---

Prepping takes less time than either of them anticipated, but they don’t mind. The apartment was starting to get a little cramped anyway. In no time at all, they find themselves standing at the glass doors, looking to the outside world and it’s now-unrecognizable streets with some trepidation.

Gerry takes a deep breath and takes Michael’s hand in his. “I know you’ve heard this a million times, Michael, but I love you so fucking much.”

Michael smiles at him and gives his hand a tight squeeze. “I love you more.”

And with that, they press through the doors into a hell that can’t quite be called hell because they are still here, and still together. May whatever gods rule this broken world have mercy on anything or anyone that tries to take that away from them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I am incapable of letting sleeping dogs lie!
> 
> The good news: there _will_ be a part four!  
> The bad news: you're going to have to wait until season five has wrapped up so I know exactly how many things I need to fix (*cough* jonny *cough*)


End file.
